You Only Have One Shot, John - REDUX
by The TechnoArtist
Summary: When John opened the door to the new universe, he expected to see his friends standing around him-tired, but relieved, and ecstatic that they won. What he didn't expect was to be thrust out of nowhere into an endless black void, with only a computer to keep him company. A computer with a particular game on it: OneShot.


**So begins a reboot of a story I started some years ago, never finished, and has been nagging incessantly at my brain, begging to be complete. Never mind that I have no clue if anything else shall follow this, never mind that the ideas for things to follow are incomplete… but then again, sometimes things like these have a habit of working out. **

**Also, just for frame of reference: This takes place towards the end of Act 7 of Homestuck, if it weren't obvious.**

**And with all that out of the way, let us begin this story of stories: You Only Have One Shot, John. **

**Chapter 1: My Burden Is Light**

SBURB, for convenient reference, is complete and utter bulls**t.

It is a game that is insanely compact, secure, concrete, and complicated, and yet flimsy, fluctuating, glitching, and adapting. Of course both of these attributes are necessary, for what is order without chaos, and vice versa, and what is a game without challenges, a unique experience for each and every player to be ensnared in its gaping maw of the creation of universes across the cosmos. Of course the player need not know of its complete madness, and yet sometimes they find out. And sometimes it matters, and sometimes not. SBURB is a tangled mess of 'maybe's, because everything in it can be predictable and also not. It takes the planet it is destined to emerge from, and adapts to best suit the players. For example, should the Game surface on a planet of young, bipedal, grey-skinned insectoids with peculiarly colored horns and blood with a tendency for killing, it would adapt for a whopping twelve-player session, and perhaps it would split the players up into two teams that while seeming to be against each other, would only serve in aiding the other to eventually succeed. Yes, that would do quite nicely. And in one such iteration, that session would succeed completely. Victory would be theirs, and the players would relish in the feeling of a newly created universe. But in another, the universe they created would wind up to be their downfall-and never getting to claim their prize, they would wait until they could contact and aid that session, eventually gaining a part of their reward. And there lies SBURB's randomness: its twists and turns in the timelines, where one thing means this and a slight change means another thing entirely. Summed up, as stated above: SBURB is complete and utter bullsh**t.

Let one propose, then, that that session previously mentioned eventually reached its rewards screen (for lack of a better term). The self proclaimed leader of the first session would nod at the (as people began calling him) friend-leader of the second session, who would bear a buck-toothed grin before turning to the door that stood before them all on the victory platform. He reached out slowly, dramatically, and it was almost funny.

And the second he touched the doorknob, the victory platform vanished.

…except it also didn't.

The friend-leader touched the doorknob, and opened it, and light bled through the area—

And then three particularly important divergences happened.

He and his friends were transported to their new universe.

He and his friends were transported just outside of a blindingly white Juju, face to face with a green abomination.

And he and his friends were sent somewhere else entirely.

The first two are the most prominent, of course, and bring their own sets of divergences-wars, epilogues, skirmishes, and whatnot.

But, perhaps, the last one could have any number of alterations-for there are a lot of places that are not the bubbles of dreams or their victory paradise.

And with so much leeway, it would be nearly impossible to cover every possibility.

But here's one that, one would think, could be particularly interesting.

One where one friend diverges from all the rest, and is sent somewhere else entirely as a sort of… bonus content. Some DLC, despite not having to pay anything else-except, perhaps, one's own time.

Regardless.

Let us move the camera to that of the friend-leader, separated from his friends and family, and blasted into another world entirely.

And let us hope he succeeds this final quest…

**John: - Exist.**

John blinked, looking up. His hand was still outstretched, and he blinked again. He wasn't exactly sure what had just happened. As he looked around this strange, new place-this couldn't be their new universe, it's a void of blackness, which if nothing else certainly is devoid of all the things that make good looking locations look good-his hand fell and he blinked again. As his mind caught up to his body, he had a couple particular thoughts, such as, 'Where is everybody?' and 'Where am I?' and finally, 'What happened?'

John blinked again. It just was a little bit shocking. As he continued to turn his head forth and back, looking for something, anything, he realized that it was more than a little bit shocking. After all they'd done. After all they'd sacrificed. After all of the planning, and hoping, and victories, and losses, and friendships and betrayals… it led to this?

This isn't victory. This isn't winning, it's not a place to rest-unless of course you fancy laying down on a bed of nothing in a world of nothing else, grabbing a midnight snack of not much at all, and awakening to a nonexistent sun.

For a moment, John is filled with anger.

And in the next moment, as quickly as it rose, the anger diminishes and gives way to grief. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Of course he'd be separated from his friends, heck, his family. Of f**king course it was all for nothing.

John kicked at the nothing as if it'd help. It didn't. But doing so took his mind off of the complete and utter sense of failure that surrounded him: there was a ground to kick. Which struck him as odd-one would think that if you were sent to an empty void that there wouldn't be anything at all… And yet, there it was, clear as crystal. There was a floor.

And so, with nothing better to do, John began to walk.

John had been walking for what felt like hours before he had decided to try flying, and thankfully, it had worked! He flew onwards in the same direction as he had been going, feeling the air-yes, air! There was air in here, which shouldn't surprise him seeing as he had not collapsed unconscious yet-flow against his face. He allowed himself a small smile. Yes, it was good that he retained his god tier abilities, even if he was momentarily saddened by the lack of use of his Retcon powers. His mind drifted to his friends and their own powers-and then he came to a complete and abrupt stop. And John thought of something terrible.

_What if he was the only one left!?_

He didn't want to believe that. He _couldn't._ His friends are fine-they're just on the other side of the door, and he's been… stuck between them, yeah! He's just stuck. If he can message them, they could work together to get him back out! Because as he thought more and more about his wonderful, powerful friends and all that they'd gone through together, he felt more and more driven to get out of here. To leave, to _get away from this stupid plane of blackness._

Then another thought occurred to John: _His sylladex._

Of course, his sylladex! He's got plenty of alchemized tech that he could use to contact the others, or get out himself. And so, stretching out his hand once more, he 'grabs' for his laptop-

Only for his heart to plummet as he grasped at nothing. He couldn't access his sylladex.

And with that weighing him down, he trudged on, no longer flying-he was bound to his feet.

...Until omething changed.

John's head perked up, his Breath swirling around. Something new happened. Did he trigger something? He upped his movement speed-from walk, to jog, to run-and he blinked-and there it was, a glimmer of light in the distance! He felt an unbidden smile stretch across his face as he took a running leap into the air to get to the source of light-an exit? A source of information? Dare he imagine it to be one of his friends? A Light user, or maybe Kanaya what with her whole glowy vampire thing?

As he got nearer and nearer to the light, he could see it for what it was: a computer.

He felt a bit let down-but wait, perhaps he could use this? The screen was on, and it… looked like it was already logged in to someone. Sorry to whoever logged in, but this is an emergency! John sat down in the chair next to the desk the computer was on, and opened the Internet Explorer application-his order of business goes 'download the Typheus browser, download Pesterchum, pester some chums, get the absolute _f**k_ outta here'. But his hopes were dashed by a cute little pixelated dinosaur-no internet.

D**n it.

After about ten minutes of the dinosaur game, John felt despair creeping in-he needed a distraction and fast. Closing out of the window, he opened up the file folders to see what he could find. The computer was alarmingly bare-bones, and the only file folder that had the little 'files inside' graphic was… 'Documents'. Opening that up, brought up another folder. 'MyGames'. He grimaced-he'd had just about enough of games-but opened it up, only to see one single game on there. 'OneShot'.

It occurred to him that if there was anything he was supposed to do here, it would be to play the game-after all, computers don't normally show up in endless voids of blackness… then again, this was his first experience with one. But I digress.

If this was a punishment-one more game to just completely f**k him over-or a blessing-a way to get home-he didn't really care.

All he did was open the game.

And as he clicked start, glancing at the graphic of a cat-person on two legs holding a large, dim lightbulb, the screen darkened…

...And two glowing yellow eyes opened on the screen.


End file.
